In the communications industry, provisions for connecting a telephone instrument to a data transmitting console includes a plastic, e.g. polyvinyl chloride (PVC), jacketed cable, having a plurality of conductors, that is connected at one of its ends to a telephone instrument through a well known micro-ribbon connector such as is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,760,335 and 3,758,935. At its other end, the cable is connected to contact pins received in apertures of a multi-contact connector which is adapted to be plugged into a mating connector on the console. This particular multi-contact type of connector, which is referred to as a sub-miniature connector, is adapted to be supported within a housing through which the cable is routed to an opening in an opposite end of the housing and thence to the telephone instrument.
Any one of a number of different size cross-section cables is used with the same size housing with the smaller ones utilizing only a portion of the total number of apertures which are available in the connector. Of course, as the number of conductors of the same gauge in the cable increases, more of the apertures in the connector are used and the size of the cable increases.
It is customary to provide strain relief facilities to prevent the detachment of one or more of the conductors from a connector during use. The micro-ribbon type connector on the telephone instrument side typically includes a strain-relief band which is an integral part of the connector. However, strain relief for the different size cables on the console end has been provided by a wing clamp near the cable entrance end of the housing because the configuration of the connector itself precludes the use of an integral band such as that used with the micro-ribbon connector. Since any number of different size cables may be used, it is necessary to maintain an inventory of different size clamps which can be used with the different size cables.
A housing which not only provides a mounting for the connector but one which also provides strain relief for a number of different size cables without the use of separate metal clamps would be most desirable. Another desirable attribute of a housing is that a cable may be routed therethrough with relative ease since the connector is already assembled to the cable when it is mounted in the housing.
In the prior art such as that of strain relief systems in telephone cord connectors, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,498, issued Oct. 16, 1972 to E. C. Hardesty et al, shows a telephone cord routed through a tortuous path which is defined between two mating portions of a connector commonly known as a modular plug. It is also common for routineers in the art to use metal type clamps for engaging the jack of a small pair size cable to provide strain relief for the cable during use. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,758,935 which covers the familiar micro-ribbon connector, as well as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,966,293 and 4,095,870 which show other strain relief systems.